Most of the main books (Spider-Man, FF, Avengers, Hulk, Thor) seem to be just sort of going through the motions. There's some really cheesy concepts, too, like the Spider-Mobile, Spidey bad guys like the Jackal, the Mindworm, and Grizzly, and Thundra's counterpart Mahkizmo in the FF. The Avengers at least have the Celestial Madonna saga, which is an unreadable nightmare but gets points for going big.

The more interesting things are happening in some of the lesser known books. Daredevil (which was nearly cancelled and on a bi-monthly schedule for much of this year), under Gerber, at least attempts to tackle some political issues. Gerber's Man-Thing has its ups and downs but is at least striving to be something different. Don McGregor's Jungle Action, supported by Klaus Janson's inks, is a fabulous book that is completely underrated. Morbius' adventures in Fear is certainly unusual, if nothing else. The Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan/Tom Palmer Tomb of Dracula run begins to grow into a deeply plotted long term storyline. The Moench (and on-again-off-again Gulacy) run of Master of Kung Fu starts this year, and it's actually very good if you can get past the stereotypes and awful racist coloring.

Of course there are plenty of crappy second tier books as well. Ka-Zar is just junk, although it gets better when Buscema takes over on art at the end of the year. Ghost Rider, and Brother Voodoo, while at least being interesting concepts, fail to deliver. Marvel Team-Up is pure exploitation. Marvel continues expanding into the horror fad but it doesn't usually work out as well as Dracula.

The price of regular sized issues goes up 5 cents, to 25 cents an issue. Paper shortages and labor settlements are the given cause. Marvel's magazines and giant-size issues were also an attempt to cut costs and find new formats that were more profitable but they really didn't catch on. The Giant-Size issues are annoying because in many cases they continue directly from the regular issues, leading to weird gaps in stories if you haven't picked them all up. The magazines, which were in B&W format, are not well represented in my collection, but they were the starting points of the careers of several creators who became regulars at Marvel, including Chris Claremont and Bill Mantlo (although Mantlo had previously worked as a colorist in their standard format comics).

Creator notes: There's not a lot of major creative talent at Marvel at this time. The Buscema brothers are both still here and doing well, ensuring a consistent look. Rich Buckler is reasonably good, working in a style similar to John Buscema. Ross Andru, on Spider-Man, also continues along in the house style, and Herb Trimpe does his thing in the Hulk and actually improves as he goes. Billy Graham looks good in Jungle Action, especially with Janson's inks. Frank Brunner has a good run on Dr. Strange that borrows heavily from Gene Colan (who is also still around), and Frank Robbins comes to Marvel to do some heavily stylized work on Captain America.

On the writing side we still have Englehart as the edgy guy on the more mainstream books and Gerber starting to do more unusual stuff on the second tier books. Doug Moench arrives at Marvel and shows a lot of potential, mainly on the kung fu books. Tony Isabella and Len Wein are picking up more books. Conway is still on Spider-Man.

There's a fair amount of creative switch-ups, possibly due to deadline issues and a lack of strong editorial staff. Roy Thomas leaves his staff position at Marvel this year, reportedly in protest of a freelancer wage-fixing scheme between Stan Lee and Carmine Infantino at DC, but remains on as a freelance writer/editor.

Notable events:

Steve Rogers gives up being Captain America. The book essentially becomes a Falcon solo book for a few issues and then Cap becomes Nomad.

Dr. Strange becomes Sorcerer Supreme with the death of the Ancient One.

The Cat (Greer Nelson) becomes Tigra

Marriage of Crystal and Quicksilver

The Defenders sort of solidify as a real super-hero team consisting of Dr. Strange, Hulk, Valkyrie, and Nighthawk